BCC appoints Jennifer Menard as new Dean of Grants Development

Thursday

Jun 19, 2014 at 5:40 PMJun 19, 2014 at 5:45 PM

Menard leaving job as longtime chief of SouthCoast Development Partnership at UMass Dartmouth

Michael Gagne Herald News Staff Reporter @HNMikeGagne

FALL RIVER — The longtime executive director of the SouthCoast Development Partnership at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth will join Bristol Community College as its new Dean of Grant Development, the college announced Thursday.

Jennifer Menard starts her new position Monday, said Sally Cameron, the vice president of college communications for BCC.

Cameron said Menard was one of handful of finalists for the position, which was advertised nationally after the retirement of former Dean of Grant Development Marianne Taylor early in the spring.

Cameron said a search committee reviewed the qualifications of Menard and several other candidates over the past few months, and said the committee was “particularly impressed with (Menard’s) broad range of grant-writing experience and experience in work force development.”

The position has an annual salary of $84,000.

Cameron said there was concern at BCC over the fact that former state Sen. Joan Menard, previously employed by BCC, is Jennifer Menard's mother. Joan Menard previously served as BCC’s acting vice president for work force development, lifelong learning, grant development and external affairs before retiring last month.

So the search committee sought the candidates for dean of grant development, but did not conduct the interviews. Cameron said BCC President John Sbrega conducted the interviews.

“The decision was taken out of that department and done at a higher level,” Cameron said, adding that Sbrega “ interviewed everybody, which is normally not the president’s job. He did the interviews and the follow-ups with recommendations.”

According to her profile listed on the website LinkedIn, Jennifer Menard has served as director of the SouthCoast Development Partnership for 13 years.

At BCC, she will work directly under another former UMass Dartmouth employee, Paul Vigeant, who recently took over as vice president of work force development position.

Vigeant previously served as UMass Dartmouth’s assistant chancellor for economic development and director of its Advanced Technology and Manufacturing Center in Fall River.

Officials at UMass Dartmouth said Jennifer Menard’s exit from the SouthCoast Development Partnership did not mean the partnership is going away, nor does it mean that the university is backing away from its leadership role in the region’s economic development.

“The partnership is alive and well and staying at UMass,” said Peter Kavanaugh who co-chairs the steering committee for the partnership.

The process for finding Menard’s successor is in its initial stages, he said.

“We taking a step back and ascertaining exactly what the needs are for economic development in this region,” Kavanaugh said, adding that Jennifer Menard will be missed and “was extremely well-respected statewide in the area of economic development.”

He said the partnership under her direction “was the regional economic development organization the state looked at as a role model.”

Kavanaugh estimated that finding Menard’s replacement will probably take two months and said the steering committee may be leaning “toward a local candidate, because it’s important that they know the players.” The selection of that person would be a joint decision by the steering committee and UMass Dartmouth Chancellor Divina Grossman.

Attempts to reach Jennifer Menard and Vigeant for comment on Thursday were not successful.